In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Joe Biden served as one of the Bush-Cheney administration’s key allies in greenlighting the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. He also claimed credit for drafting significant parts of the Patriot Act. Biden was an early supporter of detaining people at Guantánamo Bay prison, but after the Abu Ghraib torture was exposed, he would help lead the charge to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld while denouncing CIA “kidnapping” and secret prisons.
Joe Biden, the top Democrat on the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was willing to use unilateral U.S. force to attack Iraq.
Joe Biden defended Israel against criticisms of its assassination operations against Palestinians, suggesting that disagreements with Israel should be kept private.
Joe Biden did not just proudly vote for the Patriot Act, he took credit for many of its provisions.
Joe Biden was ecstatic about the invasion of Afghanistan and wanted the U.S. to deploy “badasses” who “shoot and kill people.”
After 9/11, Joe Biden supported sending people to Guantánamo Bay prison and denying some prisoner-of-war status.
Joe Biden carefully avoided taking a public stance on the coup in Venezuela but later wanted to “ratchet” up efforts to get Hugo Chávez out of power.
Joe Biden voted in favor of the Iraq War, promoted lies about WMDs, and expressed support for regime change.
After photos emerged showing the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Joe Biden denounced the actions and demanded to know what Donald Rumsfeld knew about it.
After Hamas won democratic elections in Gaza, Joe Biden called for the U.S. to cut off aid to the the Palestinian Authority.
Despite Israel’s indiscriminate killings of civilians in both Lebanon and Palestine, Joe Biden defended Israel.
As he began his 2008 Democratic presidential run, Joe Biden put forward a plan that he hoped would distinguish him: partitioning Iraq.
Joe Biden didn’t say “we attacked Iraq for oil,” but he admitted that it was “in part about oil.”
Joe Biden was an early supporter of sending prisoners to Guantánamo, but by 2006, he denounced the practice, saying it was providing “fodder” to Al Qaeda.
Six years after 9/11, Joe Biden denounced the CIA’s extraordinary renditions as “extralegal kidnapping” and demanded that black sites and secret prisons be shut down.